In a blockbuster report, John Solomon, the former Associated Press and Post reporter, has ferreted out the president’s daily brief that informed him within 72 hours of the Sept. 11 attack that the Benghazi attack was a jihadist operation.

Citing officials directly familiar with the information, Solomon writes in the Washington Guardian that Obama and other administration officials were told that “that the attack was likely carried out by local militia and other armed extremists sympathetic to al-Qaida in the region.”

He adds:

The details from the CIA and Pentagon assessments of the killing of Ambassador Chris [Stevens] were far more specific, more detailed and more current than the unclassified talking points that UN Ambassador Susan Rice and other officials used five days after the attack to suggest to Americans that an unruly mob angry over an anti-Islamic video was to blame, officials said.

Most of the details affirming al-Qaida links were edited or excluded from the unclassified talking points used by Rice in appearances on news programs the weekend after the attack, officials confirmed Friday. Multiple agencies were involved in excising information, doing so because it revealed sources and methods, dealt with classified intercepts or involved information that was not yet fully confirmed, the officials said.

Solomon cautions that there were bits of evidence pointing to a spontaneous attack but, as Eli Lake of the Daily Beast and others have reported, he writes: “Among the early evidence cited in the briefings to the president and other senior officials were intercepts showing some of the participants were known members or supporters of Ansar al-Sharia — the al-Qaida-sympathizing militia in Libya — and the AQIM, which is a direct affiliate of al-Qaida in northern Africa, the officials said.”

How could the president and his senior staff then have allowed (or rather, sent) Rice to go out to tell an entirely different tale to the American people on Sept. 16 on five TV shows?

This report indicates that the president certainly knew that Benghazi wasn’t a rogue movie review gone bad. He had information that plainly spelled out what was later confirmed by additional intelligence. If this information was too confidential to share with the public, at the very least the president and others should not have mislead voters.

This is a full-blown scandal, and in light of this information, the press corps’s slothful indifference to uncovering the truth at Wednesday’s news conference with Obama is all the more shocking. It is time for the president to come clean. The scandal has now enveloped the Oval Office and will define his second term, if not resolved satisfactorily.

The irony of this is that Rice may well have been used as a patsy, unaware that she was sent out to spin a misleading tale. My colleague Dana Milbank recounts Rice’s long-standing inability to get along with others and to be circumspect in her pronouncements:

It’s true that, in her much-criticized TV performance, she was reciting talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies. But that’s the trouble. Rice stuck with her points even though they had been contradicted by the president of the Libyan National Assembly, who, on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ just before Rice, said there was “no doubt” that the attack on Americans in Benghazi “was preplanned.” Rice rebutted the Libyan official, arguing — falsely, it turned out — that there was no evidence of such planning. . . . Obama can do better at State than Susan Rice.

Frankly the same could be said of many national security positions at this point. The American people made their choice in November on the president, but it now appears they were duped regarding the real facts concerning Benghazi. What are we going to do about that?

Let's say???? They did hold back. It's not the only thing the liberal establishment held back before the election. You can almost make a case for the huge jump in jobless claims, also the jump in welfare recipients, and the Petraeus affair.

It's a pretty powerful establishment that is able to hold back information for political purposes. You would think if these issues were available to the American voter, they would be able to make an informed decision. Much of this was not so we'll never know. We'll just have to live with the consequences.

TGI

What does the Patraeus afffair and an informed decision between Romney or Obama have to do with each other?

What does the Patraeus afffair and an informed decision between Romney or Obama have to do with each other?

Did he not serve under this president's administration? Doesn't the Petraeus situation raise more questions about the whole Benghazi situation? It has, but we are finding out about all that after the election.

Let's say???? They did hold back. It's not the only thing the liberal establishment held back before the election. You can almost make a case for the huge jump in jobless claims, also the jump in welfare recipients, and the Petraeus affair.

It's a pretty powerful establishment that is able to hold back information for political purposes. You would think if these issues were available to the American voter, they would be able to make an informed decision. Much of this was not so we'll never know. We'll just have to live with the consequences.

TGI

Why do you believe these issues were not available to the American voter? I know you like conspiracy theories and all, but if it's such important game changing info, how was it not available? Is the Republican party so inept that it cannot even educate its voters and simply bows to the awesome might of the evil commie mainstream media?

Why do you believe these issues were not available to the American voter? I know you like conspiracy theories and all, but if it's such important game changing info, how was it not available? Is the Republican party so inept that it cannot even educate its voters and simply bows to the awesome might of the evil commie mainstream media?

I fear the consequences may never be the same....

I disagree with claiming this is a conspiracy theory with the way this has all played out. It wasn't the Republicans, for the most part, that information was held back or downplayed from.

Uhm, the liberal media and liberal establishment trying to run out the clock before the election? It wasn't just being kept, it was being downplayed as well.

TGI

Don’t see it making a bit of difference. The people that voted for Obama weren’t going to vote for Romney and 1.8 Million fewer voters that turned out for McCain but not Romney weren’t going to turn out all because of this story.

FWIW, here is the latest. Sounds like a huge CYA now going on. The changing of the CIA's original talking points, they are now pointing to the office of the DNI. The problem here is the head of the DNI has already testified before Congress that he did not change them.

Meet James Clapper — the latest fall guy for the White House on Benghazi.* After last week’s hearings in Congress showed that the talking points from the CIA had been changed to eliminate the mention of terrorism, Washington erupted into a whodunit.* CBS reports today that the culprit has been found … sort of:
*CBS News has learned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to “al Qaeda” and “terrorism” from the unclassified talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack – with the agreement of the CIA and FBI. The White House or State Department did not make those changes. …

However, an intelligence source tells CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan the links to al Qaeda were deemed too “tenuous” to make public, because there was not strong confidence in the person providing the intelligence. CIA Director David Petraeus, however, told Congress he agreed to release the information — the reference to al Qaeda — in an early draft of the talking points, which were also distributed to select lawmakers.

“The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.” DNI spokesman Shawn Turner tells CBS News. That information was shared at a classified level — which Rice, as a member of President Obama’s cabinet, would have been privy to. …
The head of the DNI is James Clapper, an Obama appointee. He ultimately did review the points, before they were given to Ambassador Rice and members of the House intelligence committee on Sept. 14. They were compiled the day before.

Note that this report doesn’t pin the blame on Clapper himself.* It instead locates the change in Clapper’s “office,” allowing for a rather non-specific assignment that makes almost no sense at all.* Are we to believe that a Clapper aide overruled David Petraeus’ assessment of Benghazi?* If so, on what basis?

The report also states that the reason for the redaction was because the link to AQ was “too tenuous.”* However, the presence of mortars and RPGs, as well as coordinated fire and attack strategies in play, made it clear “almost immediately” to Petraeus and others in the CIA that this was much more than a spontaneous demonstration run amok.* That made the YouTube video explanation rather “tenuous” too, no?* And yet that stayed in the talking points while terrorism got excised.

This explanation seems even more tenuous than the previous stories coming from the White House.* If Petraeus knew “almost immediately” that this was an act of deliberate terrorism and included that in his talking points, then we need an explanation of who in the “office of the DNI” removed that explanation, and why — more than just the “too tenuous” excuse here that turned out to be totally wrong — and whether they got pressured to do so.

"Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told Fox News that intelligence officials who testified in a closed-door hearing a day earlier, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Acting CIA Director Mike Morell, said they did not know who changed the talking points. He said they went out to multiple departments, including the State Department, National Security Council, Justice Department and White House.*"

Don’t see it making a bit of difference. The people that voted for Obama weren’t going to vote for Romney and 1.8 Million fewer voters that turned out for McCain but not Romney weren’t going to turn out all because of this story.

You are probably right, it just goes to show how divided this country is to the point where American deaths, incompetence, don't matter. It's really too bad for our country.

It doesn't matter what your premise is as long as your conclusion is impeach Obama.

Why would we want to do that? We need to let him raise taxes as high as he wants on as many people as he wants and to increase entitlements to as many people as he can. In fact, we should be encouraging as many people from the U.S, and Mexico to sign up for as many programs as possible.